Observations focused on the problems of an underdeveloped country, Venezuela, with some serendipity about the world (orchids, techs, science, investments, politics) at large. A famous Venezuelan, Juan Pablo Perez Alfonzo, referred to oil as the devil's excrement. For countries, easy wealth appears indeed to be the sure path to failure. Venezuela might be a clear example of that.

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Killer Facts About Venezuela’s Parliamentary Elections

Mr. President, how can it be that the opposition with more votes than your party got only 37% of the Deputies? Sorry, well… I… then… you…well, did you see the bird? Did you see it? Ah? Did you see it?

—Art. 186 of Venezuela’s Constitution (Chavez’ Constitution) says”The National Assembly will be composed by Deputies elected in each federal entity by universal, direct, personal and secret vote with proportional representation, according to a population base of 1.1 % of the population.

—Despite this, the opposition, despite obtaining approximately the same number of votes as Chavez’ PSUV party, only got 39.39% of the Deputies in the National Assembly. Not Proportional at all, as stated in the Constitution.

—This happened because of a rule change, a new “methodology”, which was selectively applied only to eight States: Zulia, Distrito Capital, Miranda, Carabobo, Amazonas, Barinas, Lara and Táchira. These are the States where the opposition has strength, except fr Chavez’ home state of Barinas.

—The top five vote candidates by vote, were all opposition candidates, the bottom 15 candidadtes by vote were Chavista candidates.

—Pro-Chavez candidates that won received on average 55,092 votes, Opposition candidates on the other hand received on average 81,728 votes.

—Without the revolutionary new “methodology” the opposition estimates it would have obtained 14 more Deputies (79), at the expense of Chavez’ PSUV which would have obtained 81 seats in the Assembly.

—In the Capital District, the opposition got more votes than Chavez’ PSUV, but only won two out of eight nominal Deputies. So much for proportionality…

—In Carabobo State, the opposition got 53.7% of the votes and PSUV got 43% of the votes, despite which the opposition only got four Deputies and Chavismo seven. Proportionality is truly dead in Carabobo.

—And it works both ways, because of the rule tampering and the methodology, in Zulia State, the opposition got 54.8% of the vote versus Chavismo’s 44.4%, but the opposition got twelve out of thirteen Deputies. That’s not fair either, but it results from the new “methodology”. The opposition getting so many votes was not in the “plan”, the “methodology” was implemented when Chavismo was more optimistic.

—Finally, no matter how you want to spin it, the truth is that Chavismo did not do well. As proof, here are the voting trends in three Chavista strongholds of the past, including Vargas State, once considered as strong Chavista territory as could exist. The chart shows the percentage of the vote for Chavez for President in 2006, for the Chavista Governor and for the list vote in this election. The trend is clearly not Chavismo’s friend in any of these states. Just extrapolate two more years.

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I have enjoyed reading everyones comments here and there is applicable truth in most. Truth is complex, holistic and systemic and not linear. There are more truths about us venezuelans that need to be factored in and which I have discovered over the years. Research that has been suppressed all I suppose in line with that masterful treatise: Venezuela an illusion of harmony.

The first that shocked me is that we are a nation of thieves (+-70%), or more diplomatically said as “amigos de lo ajeno” and therefore we believe that anybody who has something stole it, and therefore its OK to steal from him. Sounds familiar since early in the 4th! And guess who took over politics slowly but surely here: los amigos de lo ajeno, now to the highest power and since we all know Gresham’s law, bad money drives out good. This is where we stand: Most politicians are most likely crooks.

Second research: Looking at venezuelans and what drives us: Achievement, Affiliation or Power. Its POWER for power’s sake, Affiliation (party time and bonche here), and achievement a poor third. So the few achievers we have are considered thieves by the majority. When was the last time we had rulers interested in Achievement, probably Perez Jimenez. His achievement was centered in concrete and not necessarily human development, and after that it has been downhill all the way, till today when the need for achievement nil. But POWER oh POWER yes that is a politicians dream, but useless unless Achievement driven. Achievers in Venezuela do not enter politics except briefly to straighten out a mess.

Third research: We are a nation of people who do not believe in our own power, but feel we are powerless and we need to rely on another to do our work for us.
This breeds clientelism and insecurity, politicians here have exploited this feeling since the beginning of democracy in 1959. Education here especially in public schools does not teach independence but dependence, so kids from private schools get ahead more than those from public schools. We also blame others for everything, gee even the all mighty Chavez and his ministers are still blaming the 4th of 12 years ago for all they failed to do in the last 11 years.

Fourth research: 30% of our population suffers from learning difficulties disabilities and other barriers to a productive life, so many end up in government employ with no ability to do anything useful in life.

With these four strikes against la MUD, let’s see what they can do? It will be a miracle!

The graph at the end of the lead entry in this thread depicts a sustained erosion of chavez allure over the last four years. Such lines are said to have negative slopes. It is a good sign. We would discover valuable insights if similar graphs were available for each electoral circuit. Esdata http://esdata.info/venezuela may have such information.

We could group them according to the slope of the line into growth, stable, and declining chavismo circuits. And then, using social statistics and other public records, we could find common social and economic traits in each group. I suspect that circuits with positive or stable slopes would have lower educational indicators, greater poverty indices, and less modernity. (The UCAB poverty program has developed a good index of modernity).

What I am suggesting is sort of a segmentation of the political market using as the main criteria people’s preferences for chavismo which is, after all, the backbone of Venezuela’s politics today.

In other words, if the landscape of political sentiments is not a uniform one but a manifold, then we need a plural political agenda fine tuned to the particularities of each branch of the manifold. The suggestion made by A_Antonio on September 30, 2010 at 4:58 pm is in the right track with the following caveat: instead of a collection of sitting ducks playing a tropical version of Survivor, we need a collection of specialized leaders, each working in one of the groups of electoral circuits that we found in the market segmentation study that I suggested above.

Let’s call this the Kurozawa strategy, after the master’s movie The Seven Samurai. The MUD, or whatever name the coalition of democratic forces has, would coordinate the work and would provide back office support to each of the regional strategies. This will dilute the response of officialdom for one simple reason: chavez dogmatism. He is incapable of entertaining competing values in his thinking. As he and his lackeys attack one of the Samurais, the response would come from another, one that plays in a different sandbox. The monolithic thinking of chavismo would be the stone around their neck.

GWEH: As all whom after been a while with Chavez, finishing been millionaire many times, 21st Century Socialism is an appealing ideology to embrace. So this applied actors and directors from Hollywood, too.

Eva is a protege of Andrez Izarra. Being as close as she is to Chavez, she’s a millionaire many times over. All her sources of income are government related. She was and may still be on the RNV payroll.

Eva worked as an immigration attorney for the family business in NY. Their clientele was mostly artists and musicians. Eva began her Venezuelan political activism in the US under the tutelage of Andres Izarra while Andres was stationed at the embassy.

When word got out of Eva’s political activism (shilling), business began to suffer as clients and prospects started going elsewhere. How this played a role In Eva’s decision to go to Miami or Venezuela I don’t know but it played a role.

Eva inherited the house from her grandparents though the house is under her mother’s name it’s Eva’s house. Her mother lives in NYC. Eva was planning on living there and almost opened her Miami Beach law firm before suddenly ending up in Venezuela. I think Eva was hooked after her first trip to meet Chavez when she met him on the Airbus. They seduced her with the VIP treatment.

I totally agree with the last comments from CalosElio (excellent analysis) and Moctavio.

The problem of opposition is to elect one opponent to Chavez in 2012, with a good politician common sense and well establish and probed economic plans, and have to present in the campain, to the people, disguised as populists candidate. Recent Chileans presidents or somebody like Lula da Silva will be a good example.

Two guys go to hear the keynote speech. They have recorders in their pockets. At the end of the speech you interview each guy separately. Most likely you will hear two different stories. If the topic was a hot issue, the divergence of the stories will be more pronounced than if the topic was a lame one. Now, if you turn on the recorders you will hear exactly the same story. What’s going on?

What is going on is the subject of research in judgment and decision making. What we perceive is a mixture of external data and our own experience and preferences. The heuristics of judgment most of us use have been found wanting. Our cognitive apparatus is relatively new and evolution has not had enough time to get rid of the bugs. As a species we have less than 20,000 years using language, so the brain has a beta version of the cognitive software. The emotional brain is a lot older, at least one order of magnitude older, so evolution has had time to iron out the wrinkles of the emotional software. When we experience intense emotions, from anger to pleasure, we find ourselves at a loss for words to describe our feelings. But those feelings run deep and exert an overpowering effect on our thinking.

chávez found, perhaps serendipitously, a way to connect to the emotional brain of the poor. This connection was established through half-truths, outright lies, and lots of manipulation. “You were exploited and deceived by the oligarchy and now I am here to help you get revenge” That creed finds a receptive ear among the poor because it explains their condition while exonerating them from any responsibility. Furthermore, it finds a target so that it is easy to propel them to action.

As the faithful finds in the midst of destruction of the earthquake one more testimony of the power (the whole city was wrecked) and benevolence (but you survived) of their god, the poor finds in the midst of the squalor of their lives one more reason to believe in chávez: they are fucked up because the oligarchy wants them down. It doesn’t matter that there are no oligarchs; it does not matter that people close to chávez get very rich very quickly; it doesn’t matter that basic services like power and water fail like never before. What matters is that they found a savior and will bear any burden for the sake of their savior.

Opposition should run a commited LEFTIST candidate to weaken Chavez support. Even if SHE were to only garner 5% of the vote, it would surely all come from Chavistas (people who wouldn’t vote for a right of Chavez candidate.)

And that’s just for starters. My main point is that the oppo must think a million times MORE strategically in order to win.

Yes, I would have really liked to see more oppo votes. 48% today, after 11 years of destruction is no that encouraging. However, though any election is trully referendum on Chavez, the hipothetical of “if the Parlamentarias would have been a presidential election Chavez would have still won” is not quite an apples to apples scenario since in that case I really believe the abstention would have been less (more people would have voted against Chavez).

For the election in 2 years among many risks I do see two VERY big ones:

1) That the opposition fails to capitalize on, at that point, more than 48% of the votes by not finding “the right guy”, and

2) That even if the margin benefits the opposition (by getting > 50% of the votes) it is so small of a difference that Chavez can cheat just fine. As Jau commented at 10.54pm: “who is going to tell Chavez that he lost?”

However, two things are now on the opposition side: a) more deputies in the Assembly that can hopefully be a pain in the neck to Chavez (let’s see about this), and b) Chavez himself. He just needs to keep doing what he’s been doing, and there’s even a chance, as Maria Gonzalez in her 3.55am comment, that his fall down speeds up.

After this last Sunday’s results I’m actually a lot more optimistic that before. I think though it’ll be very tough (that’s an understatement) for the opposition to pull the feat at hand: defeat Chavez in 2012. But, whether it happens in 2012 or later, I now really think Chavez is spiralling down. The question is what kind of Venezuela will be there after Chavez, and how politically stable (or unstable) will the country be?

What I like to said now is better to fight in various front lines (or with various candidates), it is more difficult to inabilities or persecuted various targets at the same time than one. Near election time you can go to primaries.

I completely disagree with you. If you have a rabo de paja you cannot run against Chavez. If the cancidate has “guaramos” as you said then he should be chosen in nationwide primaries, with plenty of time, and scream to ALL Venezuelans “I AM THE ONE WHO IS GOING TO TAKE YOU DOWN YOU SONOFABARINESABIATCH!”. And campaign HARD until 2012.

Metodex: There were not such things, in Venezuelan History, of capitalistic governments then, and socialistic governments now with Chavez.

Now and then have about the same, Capitalistic of State were governments have the production properties (agricultural and industrial, mostly unproductive) and an Import Dock Economy to supply national market. No need to say that then and now is failing soundly, and the regime only depends in the inputs of dollar from oil to run from the power smoothly.

The difference from IVth Republic, is now the real intention is all the properties will be practically owned by Chavez family and close followers (socialism is the smoke screen to the poor people), and then (in IVth) there was a State, that was administrated alternatively by AD and COPEY.

Jau: Get the future candidate against Chavez will be not easy task for Opposition, to be solved only by primaries. First, as opposition have candidate, he (or she) will be put it in a barbecue, legally and politically will be persecuted to be dead (burned) politically. Timing will be almost everything.

I think that opposition should elect now a group of candidates (six of five, one by opposition party) and put them now all at same time, with coordination, to fire badly to the Chavez line of popularity flotation, with time, and after all then been politically and legally persecuted, maybe we will have a survive one than demonstrate to have the sufficient “guáramo” and with gained popular image to defeat Chavez.

What opposition not need now is to offer a fix target to be beaten and then, in election time, have an orphan opposition. Look all opposition leaders, or all those were with Chavez and change their minds, they were obliged to fly abroad or now are in jail. What we need now is an intelligent and “cool of minded” opposition.

There is a new element in the Chavez era: RACE.
It raises tribal politics to a new level.
But Venezuelan opposition voters will never accept the new reality.
Their self defense system presupposes an interpretation of the recent Venezuelan past as non-racist, so the new reality cannot be interpreted as racist.
The ostrich continues to hide it’s head in the sand.

The 48% vote in 12 years means that Chavez is losing popularity but not exactly means the Opposition is gaining any. the oppo is doing somewhat crappy in my opinion.

I think these are PERFECT times for venezuela to look back and think how capitalism governments and socialist governments are both abusive and failures. Sure, in 2012 chavez may lose,maybe not.If he does lose, then we’ll have enough time to find another good candidate,cause i doubt whoever goes against chavez,wont be good. It’s the perfect time for BALANCE.Venezuela can be such a great,rich and a latinamerican potency if it wasn’t for the horrible management it’s had. These are my thoughts. It’s all in the balance.Don’t expropiate,create your own business,like food chains to compete against the private ones. and other things like this. Forget about the IVth and Vth republic.
We need new blood in the actual venezuelan politics. And if i might add, YOUNG STRONG MINDS that refuse to be corrupted by politics and money and power. .With integrity.Hard to find but possible.
I’d love it if somebody replied to my views,it would mean a lot to me.

1. I am very happy with the 26S results and they indicate that Chavez is going to lose in 2012, and

2. I am happy with the 26S results, its a step forward (or at least we stopped free falling!) but I am not ready to declare Chavez dead by 2012.

My father told me on monday “if we have ONE candidate against Chavez in 2012, ANYONE!! we will win the elections!!”. Well, he is my father and I love him, but I know that Manuel Rosales, Julio Borges, Frijolito, Ramos Allup and a bunch of others do not stand a chance against Chavez in a mano a mano, face to face election.

He also told me “the MUD thinks that they do not have time for primaries, that they believe that they have to move really fast to elect a consensus candidate at the MUD because Chavez is already campaigning for 2012 and time is against primaries”. If that is true I am predicting a disaster for 2012. I believe that the MUD MUST do primaries, because people will feel connected to the winner as the best hope against Chavez, if they do not do it, well who knows what will happen.

I dont know Chavez is alive and kicking, he will blame all his problems to the new deputies from jan/11 on because “they do not let me work!”

A gifted mathematician, Richard Dedekind, was able to prove the existence of irrational numbers without circular arguments. Using “cuts” on the real line, he proved the irrationals. A PDF (or Kindle, if you have the reader) version of his beautiful proof is found in http://bit.ly/aXTNHd

We need to find a way to show the cuts that exists between chavez gobbledygook and the real-life problems of the destitute. Only if we are ale to expose the bullshit of the president, people will see that they are being invited to a cesspool.

I don’t know whether to take the comment about my being young as an accolade or a condescending remark. It is irrelevant how old I am to the subject that gathers us around this virtual fireside: the irrationality of 48% voting for chávez. My thesis is that there exists an emotional bond between the dirt poor Venezuelans and this charlatan.
Scientific evidence showing the primacy of the emotional brain over decisions has been offered by researchers in behavioral economics and artfully summarized by Jonah Lehrer in his delightful book “How we decide” http://amzn.to/a3FS.
It is nothing new. Historical accounts of the madness of crowds are available in the Gutenberg project, for those of you who may want to laugh at the gullibility of the human race http://bit.ly/9m6ksN.
It also has nothing to do with the cultural stratum supporting a nation. The country of Kant, Beethoven, and Karl Friederich Gauss went bananas after a demagogue who told them how great their asses were. The insanity of the German people for their Führer is told in ridiculous prose by an otherwise respectable doctor http://bit.ly/cf7jmN

If the poor young lady with the ash-covered faced is kissed by a prince, she catapults to the pinnacle of glory. chávez came around and kissed the asses of the barrio dweller and they found in those kisses their raison d’être. Yes, it is true that MEP and AD and Copei leaders visited briios and kissed the assess of little children, but everybody knew it was a publicity stunt. Those leaders did not say: “You are my people. You are fucked up by the rich ones and I am with you and against the rich” It does not matter that his ministers don Gucci shoes and Louis Vuitton ties; it does not matter that his coffee budget for the rest of 2010 is 50 million. Those are nuances. The important fact is that this guy told them “You are the true Venezuela” (the fact that these were empty words notwithstanding.)

The irrationality of 48% despite the humongous failure to deliver can only be explained by an emotional connection. And the opposition has missed the fact that such connection exists.

The only antidote for such connections is to demonstrate their emptiness, by exposing their hypocrisy. And this is something the opposition has failed to do perhaps because they hope to replace chávez hypocrisy with their own.

Let’s leave age issues aside. Let’s focus on the irrationality of the 48% and seek plausible explanations. Only after we understand what is going on, can we then propose tenable solutions.

Miguel, the opposition has not done a good job. They are not effective.

Yes, there are millions of workers that depend on the goverment, but it has been that way before as well.

Yes, the goverment is abusive, it controls the state media, but one must accept that and try to fight it, to get opportunities. One cannot just state that one is at a disadvantage and use that statement to prevent any criticism on one’s band.

People want alternatives and the opposition up to now has not given to them.

About the media…yes, the goverment media has been hijacked by the goverment, but the traditional media has also been hijacked by what I call “opposition fundamentalism” in reaction to the goverment. For years we have had only goverment criticism and near zero criticism for the way the opposition was behaving. Any criticism has been defined as suspicious and, as a result, there has not been a renewal in the anti-Chavez camp.

And what is the result?

The result is that we have not been able to recuperate the country in 12 years…and my point is that unless we request a better opposition we will not be able to recuperate it.

I repeat the title of my post: there are no excuses. We should have done better.

CarlosElio: I agree with Miguel Octavio. You sound young. Here’s a question for you that you may not have encountered before.

Who or what entity has, and has had, long before chavismo, the greatest wealth and influence in Venezuela — by leagues? Can you name that person or group? Quick! Think!

Not coming to you? Here’s some help. The private sector in Venezuela has always been puny, in comparison to the resources, influence and riches of the STATE. And at no time before Chávez has the price of oil been so high, the STATE so corrupt, the infrastructure so limited, the law and order so rampant.

It is wrong to think that Venezuela is rich, one thing you can conclude from this blog is that Venezuela is a poor country, without productivity and industries, oil is a mirage. And in these eleven years productivity and industries were destroyed the most.

All Venezuelans at that time, with AD, and now, with Chavez are waiting for its part (money without working) of a richness that stayed mostly underground.

When somebody convince to the people that the country needs from us lots of real study and real work, without waiting nothing from government (except security, free education and free medical services), that day we call Venezuela rich.

Point to me one speech, just one, where any of the previous governments’ leaders said: “the poor are fucked up by the rich”
Yes, chavismo is another mask of the populist AD sloganeering, but this guy has gone a lot of steps further, following the tenets of the Communist Manifesto: “the backbone of history is class struggle” a backbone that, in my opinion, belongs to invertebrate animals since no such a thing is true.
My point is that in trying to explain the irrationality of 48% we waste time looking at facts since facts only prove the disastrous administration of the chavez regime. The irrationality is found at the level of the emotional brain, at the amygdala. The same irrationality that leads a woman to love her asshole husband, even after he beats the crap our of her.
If you agree that is an emotional bond between chavez and the poor, then the task becomes one of finding ways of breaking that bond. And, since it is irrational, factual explanations of an squandered wealth won’t do.

That is incorrect, the “poor” were Acción Democratica for decades and AD paid a lot of attention to them. AD had a house in every town and that is why AD was always strong even as its Governments did badly (Sound familiar?).

Recall also that the poor were much less in the 60’s and 70’s, they began increasing in the 80’s with the Luis Herrera and the following devaluations.

I agree with Jau’s comment: 48% of national support in the midst of so much failure is an irrational number in the political sense. In searching for an explanation to that irrationality, I have tried hard to look at chavez from a chavistas’ point of view. Actually from two chavistas’ point of views: the downtrodden and the wealthy leftist.
Prior to chavez, Venezuela was, as it is now, a wealthy country with a huge number of poor people. The difference is that before, the poor people did not count at all. No presidential speech was made with them in mind, they were the outcasts of society. To highlight their location in the social map, they were called marginals. Now, the poor are the and their plight are the main staple of chavez’s speeches. He appears as their champion advocating their causes. He doesn’t much in terms of improving their lives, but he certainly talks a lot about it. If you were ignored by every government before and this charlatan comes along talking a lot about you, then you develop an emotional bond with your “savior.” The opposition has failed to show chavez’s hypocrisy because he has had the resources and the power to uplift the poor but has failed to do so. The ineptitude and corruption erode his government’s capacity to implement social reform. The poor are as poor–if not worse off–than they have ever been. LIke believer who thank god when there is a natural disaster, the poor thank chavez despite their worsening misery.
The wealthy leftist sees in chavez a guy with big cojones who insulted Bush when American prestige was going down the toilet. They antipathy for Bush’s misguided policies and abuses of power fueled their support for a guy who called Bush the devil at the United Nations. As long as they have a mouthpiece to voice their dislike for extreme right wing politics, they will cheer the charlatan.

Miguel, it is clear that the system is inconstitutional, but the whole thing is putting a screen on a hard fact: after 12 years of the most disastrous goverment in the history of Venezuela, in a country without electrictiy, without water, with infation, unemployment, etc. All the “opposition” parties get barely a bit more than 50% and the goverment party is still the one with the largest number of votes.

If the election had a been a presidential one, Chavez would have won. We have to understand why this happened and request a better opposition if we want to win 2012.

To me, this looks like 2007. Everybody overly optimistic and the opposition doing nothing and next losing the regional and losing the enmienda.

All this talk about the circuits is putting a balm on our judgement on the opposition.

Citizens believed Chavez was invincible and was on their side. Supporters had an easy choice. Now after the crime, corruption, power, water, food shortages, economic, free speech, excess overseas spending, expropriating businesses, eliminating radio/tv stations, traffic, FARC, lies from Chavez, medical and hospital, Cuban sovereignty invasion, unemployment, hatred among classes, brain drain from the country, potholed roads, police state, lack of independent judiciary, lack of independent National Assembly, hatred of the U.S. and kissing of Fidel, mandatory socialism classes in all schools, a $75 million personal jet, turning children into gun toting socialists, Tascon list, gerrymandering, fascination with the remains of dead leaders, ignoring dead bodies of citizens in the Caracas morgue, and other problems, Chavez was shown to have cheated on an election.

Now, people feel Chavez is not on their side and he is no longer invincible.
Chavez may consolidate his power, but it will be without the majority’s support. Only two years until Chavez next election. He should be worried.

Jau,
Do you remember how Chavez popularity increased very fast after he decided to go to elections? Well the same thing hopefully will happen before 2012 in the opposite direction. Changes some times only happen gradually, but some times the rate of changes becomes exponential, so this is what i hope for a exponential decrease in Chavez popularity.

If he does not step down after loosing elections…who knows. I know that the situation for many people in Venezuela is bad, but I do not want a military intervention or “golpe de estado” against or pro Chavez . This will be the worse that can happen to the future of Venezuela democracy.

There’s a movie cliché that I hope applies to Chavez. In countless movies, there’s a street gang or a biker’s gang or some other type of gang of hoodlums and lowlifes that terrorize the town and who blindly follow an evil leader. At the end of the movie, the hero fights the gang leader, who cheats in every way he can, yet the hero ends up the winner of the fight. Right after that, the whole gang, in unison, abandons the leader. They either swear loyalty to the hero, or simply walk away in disgust.

That’s actually realistic. Many people follow a strong leader simply because he’s strong. It has nothing to do with agreeing with him, or thinking that following him will make their lives better. It’s merely a result of pack mentality that makes people feel indestructible if they follow a leader they think is indestructible. And of course, the first time the leader looks weak and defeated, they’ll abandon him because they were only following him for his air of indestructibility.

I’m willing to bet that happened to Chavez last Sunday, and specially in the press conference on Monday. He looked like he had been demolished. It’s not that he was beat to a pulp in the election. In the strict sense, it was a tie, and he still has a whole lot of AN “focas” to cheer him up. But the look on his face, the absence of a real celebration, the fact that he feels he has to convince everyone that he won, his non-answer to the reporter’s question (which is right now on the front page on youtube), and some of the reactions on aporrea.org, all that adds up to an unavoidable fact: he’s not the alpha dog anymore. The hero won the fight and the evil gang leader has lost the respect of his followers.

Due to a series of maneuvers, the election system as managed by the CNE presented results that gave 60% of the National Assembly to the chavista party (PSUV) when the elections resulted almost in split numbers for the officialists and the opposition. I recommend this article about what happend: http://bit.ly/9DXaV2

Miguel, I know that 26S was a step forward, but Chavez getting 48% of the vote after 11 years of failure is too much. I also know about all the advantages of the campaign, the fear of public workers, and all other tricks turn by Chavez, but 48%!!!!

I mean, in 2 more years he will fall to what? 46%? 44%? I am praying for the price of oil to go down but sooner or later oil will go up again, then what?

I dont want to be a pessimist, but after 11 years of destroying the country, after all the crime victims, after all the insults and the “expropiese!”. 48% Its TOO high for me.

Everybody is saying that if we have one candidate against Chavez in 2012 then we will win. To that I say that yes, we could probably pull a victory, but who is going to tell Chavez that he lost? the CNE?, the military?, the supreme court? I am sure that when they need to REALLY trick the system, they will not hesitate.

Miguel allow me to comment US-Vzla events going forward. The current US Administration is a lot meeker towards Chavez than Bush admin was. Valenzuela and Restrepo are not trustworthy for they know GN-DGIM-CUFAN in bed with FARC but wont say. Jojoy notebooks will probably beg for sealed indictments against all including el Comandante… Chavez’ greatest fear. There is precedent in Noriega, Aristede and Raul Castro. The gringos would be foolish not to have a sealed indictment in their toolbox. Of course it will never see light of day but you never know… Noriego went loco and they had to go after him.